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An important part of the everlasting, single-side, faith-based contract God made with Abram involved this strange and graphic “vision” of animals cut in pieces, scavengers, darkness and God appearing as a smoking oven and a torch. Many scholars explain this away as a common form of ancient deal-making.
Food for thought from the recorded discussion
What does the second part of Gen. 15:1 say? [See the discussion of the first part of Gen. 15:1.] Why did God tell Abram “not to be afraid”?
Who did Abram consider his heir? What does Eliezer’s name mean (Strong’s lexicon No. 461)?
What did God show Abram in the sky (Psalm 19)? How did Abram respond?
What did God tell Abram to bring to assure him that His word was true? What was the purpose of these animals? Why weren’t they laid on an altar? Why were the laid on the ground instead? What did Abram do to the animals? What really was the bird often translated as turtledove (Strong’s 8449)? What is the pigeon (Strong’s 1469)? What were the birds of prey doing? Why did Abram scare them away? Who do the animal carcasses represent? What did God tell him about the future of his descendants via these animals? What does the hawk or the “bird of prey” represent (Strong’s 5861)? How does the division of the animals relate to the division of Joseph from the rest of his family?
Why did God tell Abram that He would be his shield? How would you feel if God told you that your descendants would be treated in this way?
Gen. 15:19 shows us a list of peoples: Who are the Kenites? Who are the Kenizzite and Kadmonites? Who were the Hittites? Who were the Perizzites? What does the term Rephaim mean? Who are the Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and the Jebusites?
Who fought the Amorites when the people of Israel came out of Egypt? Where was that battle?
What does the Hebrew word shield mean (Strong’s 4043)? Who was God going to shield? What does Paul tell us about the purpose of the shield?
What were the oven and the torch in Gen. 15:17? What do they signify?
What is worship?
Speaker: Richard Agee.